The Right And Wrong Of Nike And Foundry Enterprises

"Live your greatness".

Although not an Olympic partner, Nike's sales performance as the theme of this year's London Olympics has been applauded by many people, but in the 90s of last century,

But because the supply chain problem is "not so great", it has been attacked by public opinion.

In June 1996, a 12 year old child laborer in Pakistan was squatting on the hand to sew exquisite Nike football photos in American Life magazine.

The magazine explained that he earned only $2 a day.

This triggered a consumer boycott of Nike products, and Nike suffered a heavy blow.

The child labor incident also forced Nike to take measures to restrain the serious violation of labor rights and interests of its suppliers in the supply chain, so as to restore consumer trust, so that it became one of the most active enterprises in promoting the improvement of working conditions: Nike helped create.

Partnership organization and drafting the factory code of conduct, in 1999 the organization developed into the United States Fair Labor Association.

It has become a common practice for multinational enterprises to formulate codes of conduct and take the lead in promoting labor rights in the industry.

However, there are great differences in the severity, compliance and remedial measures of different companies, and factory audits are also different.

As early as 2000, Nike released its overall survey for the first time, but it did not disclose the details of all the factories in the supply chain until 2006.

The list of overseas producers announced by Nike at that time included 124 in China, 73 in Thailand, 35 in Korea and 34 in Vietnam. Besides, there were also factories in all parts of Asia and South America, Australia, Canada and Italy.

Lee Weinstein, a spokesman for Nike, said he hoped that the company's openness to its suppliers could push the industry forward.

In the report, Nike also acknowledged that the overseas manufacturers with whom they cooperate had indeed forced workers to delay work and infringe on the rights and interests of workers.

Among them, Nike reviewed 569 overseas manufacturers in 2003 and 2004.

According to the report, factory problems in South Asia are serious.

Half of the local factories require workers to work for more than 60 hours a week, of which more than 10% of the factories have penalized workers who refuse to work overtime. In addition, the report also points out that many factories in South Asia also restrict workers' toilets and drinking at work time.

Nike's move is undoubtedly a challenge to the industry's hidden rules.

Footwear companies generally believe that the information of publicly owned factories will damage their competitiveness.

Hannah Jones, head of Nike's social responsibility department, said: "this disadvantage is negligible. On the contrary, lack of pparency will hinder the inspection process." Hannah Jones said.

The concealment of information will result in multiple audits of some factories that have OEM for many enterprises, while other factories have completely escaped the relevant inspections.

To enhance pparency is the sign that some big companies improve their image and attract customers in recent years.

They feel that a company with a sense of social responsibility can attract more consumers.

According to the latest social responsibility assessment of 100 global companies, 72 companies released social responsibility reports every year by consulting firm Account Ability.

However, critics also believe that Nike has a gap to fully fulfill its corporate social responsibility requirements.

Jeff Ballinger, a support for workers' rights and interests, said that although Nike's initiative was positive, it displayed more good side in public. There was no concrete solution to the practical problems put forward by workers.